


kept us awake with wolf's teeth

by Griftings



Series: of dreams, those frigid things [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Post Episode 44
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 18:15:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6530821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griftings/pseuds/Griftings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Orthax may have been the smoke, but there is rarely smoke without fire; the darkness within him that draws such demons close, that lets them take root in his heart, the moral ambiguity that allows him to make those poor decisions, that is all his and his alone, with nothing to blame for it but his own nature. He is not a particularly good man.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Despite this, despite the fact that he has never striven to be wholly honest, neither does he pride himself a liar. What he'd said to Vex'ahlia that day on the parapets was true.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>He has lost one family. His heart is resilient, the darkness inside of it lends to that, but he will not sit idle and suffer the loss of another.</i>
</p>
<p>Or, the immediate sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6286888">until all these shiver subside</a>, wherein Vex vanishes, and Percy isn't the best at letting go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kept us awake with wolf's teeth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mischief7manager](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischief7manager/gifts).



> so hey @mischief7manager, remember how i said this would be like. a small side project. WELLLLL. i literally intended for this to be about 5k and then i realized it was p much the perfect opportunity to explore my personal headcanon that percy is a lucid dreamer, and things just kind of snowballed out of control from there. anyway, i'm not the greatest at writing happy endings and i don't typically plan them for my fics, as i much prefer open-ended conclusions that can be left for interpretation, but i tried to compromise between the two in this one. hope you like it! uvu*
> 
> please note, as this takes place immediately following [shivers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6286888), it has absolutely no relation to any of the episodes that have aired after 44.

When Vex'ahlia leaves, no one thinks to question it for nearly a week.

In truth, it almost comes as a relief, a hope that maybe things are returning to normal for her; she's never been very good at being caged in the Keep, after all, and in the past has disappeared for days at a time to cavort in the woods, coming back breathless and dirty with twigs in her hair and a smile on her face. Percy takes it as a good omen, a sign that she has perhaps finally regained her equilibrium after she--

Well. After.

The fact that she leaves Trinket is odd but, again, not concerning. There are places bears can't go, after all, and she's left him in the care of her brother before, though rarely. That the bear doesn't seem to have much of an appetite _is_ somewhat strange, but Trinket has always been moody and sullen when not around his master. Scanlan comments on it, and Keyleth cuts her eyes to Vax, who these days looks perpetually dour, but when he doesn't react the matter is largely considered dropped and Vox Machina goes about their business, ignoring their missing Ranger.

And after the week has passed, maybe Vax starts making trips into Emon to skulk about Vex'ahlia's known haunts, and maybe Keyleth disappears a few times into the woods surrounding the Keep with the pretense of communing with the nature there, and maybe Percy stalks the walls with the guards on watch a bit more than is perhaps necessary, but it has only been a week, and Vex has always been such a wild thing.

A second week comes and goes, and Percy watches, and he waits patiently, and he eats and he sleeps and he wakes.

And, occasionally, he dreams.

Percy rarely dreams of kind things, though some dreams are perhaps less unkind than others. He dreams of heat and metal, which are not bad things in and of themselves. He dreams of his family, terrible dreams of their deaths and arguably even more terrible dreams of their lives for the bittersweet longing they leave in their wake. He dreams of smoke, of choking, of a darkness that consumes him and leaves him floundering alone in the shadows, and those dreams are wretched and aching but less so than the dreams of Vex on the stone floor of the sunken tomb, lifeless and still from his hands.

So no, Percy is not unaccustomed to poor sleep, but some time during the second week of Vex'ahlia's disappearance, he wakes from a dream that he cannot remember, which is a strange oddity for him, freezing and shivering in his bed and a deep, encompassing dread in his heart, and Percy has never been a religious man, has put his stock in the sciences and the natural order of things, has at least chosen to disregard omens and prophecies if not disdain them, but if there were ever a poorer omen than this he doesn't know what it could be.

He tries to go back to sleep, but his heart is pounding and his blood is pumping heavy in his veins, urging him to get up and _go_ , but he doesn't know where to, and so he doesn't at all, and rest is fitful and truthfully not very restful at all.

\------------------

The next morning, Percy, purely by chance, manages to run into Vax, who is blank-faced in the kitchen and packing as much dried food into his bags as he can.

Percy has always been close to the twins, he likes to think. Perhaps, lately, more so in the case of one and less so in the case of the other, but he's fancied himself to have a rapport with the both of them for at least the majority of Vox Machina's time spent travelling together. He's been closer to Keyleth for longer, certainly, but that is more due to her abundance of charm than a lack of it by the other half-Elves. (Keyleth is too much like Vesper, too much like Whitney, too much like the way Cassandra used to be, and yet like none of them at all; she's gentle and trusting and naive and Percy loves her for it, in his own selfish way, the way that he is selfish about most things.)

Still, he cannot read Vax's expression, cannot gauge his intentions or parse the reason for his moody silence, though admittedly many of his interactions with Vax of late have been conducted in moody silence.

It isn't until later, when Percy has once again disdained his workshop in favor of pacing a rut into the parapets, casting his eyes over the horizon for a glimpse of black and turquoise, that he sees Vax leaving through the front gates, Trinket a lumbering mass of fur at his heels and two heavy bags thrown over his shoulder. He comes to the edge of the wall and leans against it.

"Vax!" he calls out, curious and concerned. "Where are you off to?"

There is no response, neither in word or in motion, both man and bear continuing to the road to Emon without reaction.

Percy curses, and jogs to the closest ladder that will take him to the grounds.

It takes nearly a minute to catch up, Vax not having broken his stride at all, and when Percy reaches them he pulls up next to his friend's side and frowns.

Vex is wearing his traveling leathers and no expression, not avoiding Percy's eyes so much as ignoring them entirely. Trinket gives a rumble of either greeting or warning; Percy isn't well-versed enough in his mannerisms to discern which.

"Vax," he says, dogging his steps, that sense of dread that he's had since the night before starting to worsen in his chest. "Vax, where are you doing?"

Vax says nothing, eyes on the road, his steely gaze unwavering from where Emon sits before them.

"Vax, what on earth is going on?"

Trinket rumbles again, ears pinned back now, but Vax still gives no reaction, and Percy--

Percy has had far too much of being left behind.

"If you're going to leave," he says, harder than perhaps he intended to, and reaches out to grab Vax's arm, "the least you could do is tell us."

That's definitely a growl from Trinket now, and Vax yanks anyway, finally jerking about to glare at Percy, dark hair whiping behind him. The two men stare each other down, and the bear isn't helping Percy's nerves here, but he stands his ground.

After a few moments pass in silence, Percy says, quiet and firm, "I-- _we're_ already missing one of our friends. I'd much prefer not to miss another."

A full minute goes by before Vax puts a hand on Trinket's flank, calming him. His voice is quiet but steady, and he won't meet Percy's eyes when he says, "I'm going to find her."

Who he's going to find is obvious; Percy doesn't even think to ask. "She'll come back," he says, but the assurance tastes stale in his mouth, and when Vax finally looks him in the face his expression is hard.

"She wouldn't leave him for this long," he says, patting Trinket again, and Percy wonders if Vax thinks that it would be easier for her to leave _him_ than it would to leave the bear, which is so ridiculous a notion that he immediately dismisses it entirely. "She's gone, and I'm going to find her, and drag her back. And if she doesn't want to come back then I'm going to stay with her wherever she is regardless."

"And you're going to do this alone then, are you?" Percy asks, incredulous and a bit offended.

"I always have," Vax says, and drops his eyes.

"Where would you go?"

Vax glances down at his hands, which clench into fists. Now Percy can read him better, the severe mask dropped, can see him struggle with the feeling of needing to do this alone and the thought that maybe he _can't_. "I think," he says slowly, haltingly, as if having to pull the words from his mouth, "that she left because of what happened. In the tomb."

Percy witholds his immediate reaction, which is to say _clearly_ , and lets Vax speak at his own pace.

"I know she was having nightmares. I know that in the weeks before she left, she was... off." (Percy thinks about it, thinks about her skin, so cold to the touch, the way her eyes would slide out of focus in the middle of a conversation, how her words would drift away from her dreamily without reason, about her burrowing into him, shivering, trembling, _I just wanted to be warm again, Percy_.)

"The Raven Queen," he says, a bit redundantly he feels, but Vax nods in agreement regardless.

"When we were in that tomb, I told Her to take me, and She didn't, because it wasn't me She was interested in. And now I think She's come to collect."

It makes sense in a horrible way, in a way that Percy has strictly avoided thinking about the last few weeks out of willing blind denial. Sometimes, he thinks, things that should be obvious are not quite so until they're spoken aloud.

"You're going to the Her temple in Vasselheim, aren't you?" he asks, and Vax nods, misery on his face now that he's lost control of his expression. It's a feeling Percy knows rather intimately, can sympathize with; out of all of Vox Machina, he probably knows best the loss of family.

"I can't think of anywhere else she would go."

Percy turns and gestures at Emon, at the proud city that has toiled so diligently to remake itself after the hardship of the last year. Whitestone will always have his heart, but this is a fine place to call home as well. "You're, what? Going to take an airship? She's got nearly two weeks on us now, she could have come to the Temple and gone at this point. Keyleth can get us there _today_."

Now that coldness is back in Vax's eyes, the coldness that Percy has unfortunately become used to in the last few months. Something between them was broken that night in the tomb, when he opened that casket, when he--

Percy wonders if it can ever be mended, now.

"There is no _us_ ," he hisses, hunching his shoulders, tensing up like a snake. "I don't want to involve her in this, she's, she's been through enough. I'm going alone."

"Nonsense," Percy says, sharply. He has as much of a stake in this as Vax, as much desire to have their Ranger back as the rest of them, perhaps more so than some of the others. If he truly loses her, if she is truly gone-- "You have friends, Vax. And if for whatever foolish reason you decide that you don't want those, then at the very least you have _resources_ , and for your sister's sake I suggest you use them."

Vax's face twists into a snarl, and Trinket shifts uneasily. "You're a cold bastard sometimes, Percy."

"I am aware," he agrees, and forcibly removes one of the packs that Vax is carrying. "But a reasonable one, unlike you at the moment." The two of them glare at each other for a long beat, neither willing to back down, before Percy softens with a sigh and repeats, quietly, "You have friends, Vax. And so does your sister. If you won't let us help you, at least let us help her."

"I am scared, Percival," Vax tells him suddenly, looking very lost beneath his anger, hands still clenched white into fists. He seems so young right now, despite the fact that he's a few years older than Percy himself. Vax is strong, he thinks, but he is quite delicate, too.

"I know," he says, and shoulders the pack himself. "I know."

\------------------

Percy knows himself rather well. He knows that he is not a particularly good man, despite occasional best efforts. He knows that he is predisposed to poor decisions regarding his own safety, be it safety of body or safety of mind.

Orthax may have been the smoke, but there is rarely smoke without fire; the darkness within him that draws such demons close, that lets them take root in his heart, the moral ambiguity that allows him to make those poor decisions, that is all his and his alone, with nothing to blame for it but his own nature. He is not a particularly good man.

Despite this, despite the fact that he has never striven to be wholly honest, neither does he pride himself a liar. What he'd said to Vex'ahlia that day on the parapets was true.

He has lost one family. His heart is resilient, the darkness inside of it lends to that, but he will not sit idle and suffer the loss of another.

\------------------

They cannot leave until the next morning, Keyleth not having prepared the spell necessary to travel through trees, and that night, when Percy dreams, he dreams--

He is at the Sun Tree, and the Sun Tree is black and charred. Bodies hang from it, from ropes, from Keyleth's grasping vines, bodies with faces that he cannot recognize by sight but knows in his soul are his family, de Rolo and Vox Machina both. It's terrible, but he's used to it; it's a song and dance he's suffered through before, a wretched sight but no longer so disturbing as to startle him awake.

Whitestone around him is dark and cold, its architecture bleeding through to Emon's, until they're unrecognizable from each other, dark and cold but burning, the Sun Tree's branches crackling with freezing fire, threatening to spread to the ropes and vines but Percy knows they won't burn, knows the hanging bodies will be left untouched, just for him, just so that he'll be forced to see them.

In the distance, a figure stands, watching him, too far to make out the features, just watching, not moving. They regard each other for a moment, a minute, a lifetime. Time works strangely in dreams.

Finally Percy moves to take a step forward, but when his foot lifts it never lands and he's falling, falling, the Sun Tree and the bodies and the figure vanishing above him as he sinks into the darkness.

Percy wakes, slowly and quietly. He has had far too much experience with nightmares for them to surprise him much anymore. He stares at the ceiling and rolls over in bed; it has been far too long since Vex'ahlia visited him that night for any scent of her to still linger in the sheets, but he lets himself have a brief moment of weakness to pretend that it does, muscles jumping nervously under his shivering skin.

\------------------

Keyleth goes, obviously, and so does Pike. Scanlan and Grog stay behind, both clearly unhappy but trying to hide it to save face, in the event that this is just a prolonged jaunt in the woods and Vex returns while they're gone.

Vax seems supremely unhappy at the state of things, stalking ahead of them when they walk through the tree to Vasselheim, Trinket keeping pace and ignoring them all. The Dusk Meadow is lively, merchants hawking their wares and shoppers chatting amicably, a stark contrast to what Percy would expect of a district devoted to the Raven Queen, but they travel in silence, Keyleth with her wide, anxious eyes on Vax's back and Pike often reaching up with one hand to grasp her her holy symbol.

Percy wonder what good it's doing for her, if any.

They ask around once or twice, stopping at stalls selling items that they think might catch Vex's attention, catching a few different Bastions as they pass to see if anyone has seen Vex. ("What does she look like?" they ask, and each time they all point in unison to Vax.) The answer is always no, and when they've finally made their way to the Raven's Crest tensions are high in the group.

At the entrance to the temple, Trinket balks and outright refuses to go in, ignoring all of Vax's cajoling and Keyleth grunting at him in beast-speak, his fur puffed up and his ears pinned back, not snarling but panting heavily, his big brown eyes wet and wide.

"He's scared," Keyleth says finally, after trying unsuccessfully to converse with him. Percy doesn't say anything, but he doesn't think that this is a very good sign.

From the way Pike is biting her lip and Vax is glaring at the temple in personal offense, that unfortunately seems to be the general consensus with the rest of them as well.

"I'll stay out here with him," Pike offers, eyeing the high walls of the Raven's Crest, the dome at the top of the cathedral. "This place is... it makes me nervous, too."

The decor inside is dark, austere, blacks and burgundies and deep navy blues, and locating a priest is easy. Finding one willing to talk to them is not. When they finally manage to pull one aside and describe Vex to him, he directs them to a high priest, which, again, Percy doesn't think is a good sign.

The High Priest of the Raven Queen is a thin older woman, willowy and pale, appearing mostly human but with features just angular enough, ears just pointed enough to suggest Elvish blood somewhere in her lineage. She looks them over with a sort of mild neutrality and introduces herself by saying, "I've had dreams of the woman you speak of."

"Is she here?" Vax asks immediately, stepping forward in a way that's just tense enough to appear aggressive, and Keyleth murmurs something to him quietly, places a hand against his back. He looks like he's about to shake it off before calming and accepting the touch. "Please, she's my sister. Please tell me if she's here."

"She's not, nor has she been," the woman says, and Percy's heart drops, a hope he hadn't realized he was carrying quite so tightly becoming heavier inside of him like a stone. "But all of us who've served the Raven Queen for a substantial amount of time dream of her." Her expression, which isn't so much haughty as indifferent, softens slightly, and she reaches out and touches Vax's shoulder. Much like with Keyleth, he tenses but allows it, though unlike with Keyleth he doesn't relax into it at all. "If you wait here, she will come. The Raven's call is too loud for those of us who hear it to ignore."

"What do we do, Vax?" Keyleth asks, stepping closer after the woman leaves, voice soothing and rubbing small circles into his leathers with her hand.

Percy knows what he'll do, what he would do regardless of whatever the others decide. Vex may have absolved him off his guilt in her heart, but he still carries it stubbornly in his own. He has caused this; he will see it through. That is the least he can do for her.

"We stay here, and we wait," Vax says finally, decisively, and then finds a seat and takes it, staring at the wall with his jaw set.

Keyleth glances at Percy with a worried frown. "Stay with him," he says to her quietly. He is well familiar with the look of a man who needs comfort but refuses to ask for it. It is a face he sees regularly in his mirror. The difference between himself and Vax is that Vax always has someone willing to _give_ it. "I'll take Pike and Trinket to the Take and set up some rooms."

She bites her lip and nods, then surprises him by reaching out and drawing him into a hug. Percy has never been the most tactile of men, a childhood of disdaining the company of his many siblings and an adulthood mourning the lack of them lending to a tendency to bear his troubles alone, and in silence. Still, of all of Vox Machina, Vex'ahlia included, Keyleth's touch is perhaps the one he is most comfortable receiving, and giving his own in return. He's gotten better at it lately, gotten better at allowing himself to _want_ touch, so he stiffens for only a moment before embracing her as well.

"We'll wait as long as it takes," she whispers into his shoulder. "We'll find her."

"I know," he tells her, and lets her go. He is sure in his conviction, because the alternative is unacceptable.

\------------------

In his room at the Take, Percy dreams.

He dreams of the Sun Tree again. It's a staple in almost all of his dreams, he's discovered, whether they take place in Westruun or Emon, at Grayskull or Vasselheim, as like to find it at its normal place at the center of Whitestone as bursting from the stone and rock of the Underdark.

In this dream the bodies are hung by ropes made of illogically braided feathers, the vanes and barbs catching together to form twine strong enough to hang himself from, as in fact all of the bodies slowly swaying in a nonexistant breeze are of Percy himself.

One hanging body is burnt, skin black and cracked in places and raw and angry in others, clothes still smoldering slightly and glowing from the embers. Another body is cut open, pale, still bleeding from the myriad of slices and stabs that litter his limbs, his jacket sodden and stained red. Yet another is frozen, dripping water from half-thawed hair, ice clinging to his fingertips and the toes of his boots, lips blue from the cold. Another, three more, a dozen, hang from the branches of the Sun Tree, and Percy counts them, inspects them all from a distance, places each body to a poor decision he's made in the past, a fate he's avoided through sheer dumb luck and a monster made of smoke.

A figure watches, in the distance, too far to make out the features but closer now, standing, just watching. He looks from it to the bodies hanging from the tree; when he looks back, the figure is closer, slightly, only just so, still watching, but now he can see long hair, and feathers, so many feathers. They twist and turn, wrapping together to make a noose that closes over his neck, softly, just light enough that he can feel it, and when he takes a step forward his feet lift and then never land, and when he falls it tightens around his throat until he's hanging, too.

\------------------

It takes nearly three days for Pike to talk to Percy about anything beyond simple pleasantries. Three days of Vax waking and leaving the Take to sit outside the Raven's Crest until it opens to the public, and then sitting inside of it until it likewise closes. Keyleth is by his side more often than not, providing silent comfort, and Percy joins him as well, sometimes, though not usually for company; the rift between them grows with each passing day that Vex'ahlia isn't present, to the point where he wonders if it can ever be bridged now.

Maybe if the woman herself came back. Percy thinks that there are few things Vax wouldn't be willing to do, if his sister returned. There's very little he himself wouldn't give, after all.

Still, when Percy isn't at the Temple himself, Vasselheim is a wide, wonderous city to explore, and though the current circumstance never truly leaves his mind, he's willing to let Pike lead him around and show him the sights as a distraction, especially if it provides a distraction for her as well. There's been a disquiet in her, a somberness that seems out of place on such a gentle face, one that's obviously warranted but no less disconcerting for it.

The temple of Sarenrae is a beautiful thing, aesthetically. He appreciates it, much like he appreciated the temple to Pelor in Whitestone in his youth. It's lovely, and what other people can do in service to their gods is astounding, but he's never been the type to put faith in much of anything. Life and fate both have failed him just a bit too much for that.

Pike pauses outside of it, having gone to check on her people there and Percy having tagged along for lack of anything better to do. He's loathe to be idle, his mind working too fast, too hard for resting on laurels, but with no tools to tinker with his energy builds up nervously, that quick mind working against him without distraction. When he glances down at her, stopping when she stops, her expression is pained and her eyes are wet. Startled, he leads her to a nearby bench and they settle just in time for the first tears to fall on her cheeks.

Uncomfortably reminded of Whitney and her occasional bouts of moodiness, ones that only Oliver could properly draw her from, Percy pats her tiny shoulder awkwardly and says, "There, there."

"I should have been there," Pike says, her voice still sounding strong despite the waver in it. "I could have-- if I'd been there, I could have called Sarenrae and none of this mess would have happened."

Oh, hells.

"You were needed elsewhere," he murmurs, now properly comforting her. It helps, sort of, that she's so small, so little as she leans into his side. It's-- he had several younger siblings, and was sometimes called upon to comfort them. It's strange, sort of, like pulling on an old coat that he's grown just slightly too big for, familiar but a little tight in the shoulders. "It's not your fault."

"It is," she insists, crying in earnest but thankfully not quite sobbing yet. "There's nowhere more important than with all of you. I wasn't there and it's _my fault_."

Percy thinks about Vex, approaching the casket with a critical eye, inspecting for anything abnormal even as he reached in without thinking. They'd just killed another fucking _Beholder_ ; surely the worst had passed. Surely, after that, there could be no larger threat.

Percy thinks about Vex, not seeing the blast of energy in time, being thrown back against the stone floor, breath knocked from her in a final gasp even before she hit, eyes staring up at the ceiling sightlessly. _Oh, gods,_ he'd thought, _oh gods, what have I done._

Percy thinks about Vex, how he killed her, how he _fucking_ killed her, how his offering, all he had, all he could wrack that quick and clever fucking brain of his to think to give, wasn't enough. He wonders if anything he does ever will be.

Percy thinks about Vex, and says, "No, Pike. It's really not."

She weeps openly into his side, face burrowed into his jacket. How much sorrow she must have been carrying, and how silently, for it to have burst out from her now and to this magnitude. He wishes Grog were here. When it comes to comforting, he is almost always a poor substitute.

"She doesn't blame you for it," he says to her gently. He knows this is true, because he knows that deep down inside, she blames him. It's only logical, and it makes the most sense. After all, how could she not?

" _I_ blame me for it," Pike hiccups, "and that's almost _worse_."

\------------------

He dreams, and he doesn't see the Sun Tree because, inexplicably, he _is_ the Sun Tree.

These dreams are rarer, but they do happen on occasion; Percy feels his limbs, his bark heavy with ropes and vines and feathers. His leaves are gone, his branches naked and burnt, can't feel the wind but knows it's blowing because he can feel the swaying of the bodies hanging from him as the breeze hits them.

His family, maybe. Either of them. Perhaps just more copies of him. Regardless, they are his burden, his to carry and hold, his boughs creaking beneath the weight of them, their feet just barely skimming the ground. Perhaps if he could sag just a bit more, perhaps if his branches could droop a scant inch, they could touch it, take some of the weight off of him, he is so tired of having to hold all of these failures, but that resilient heart works against him now. His trunk is too proud and strong to break.

He sees, in the distance, a figure. Closer now, a woman, watching him, though still too far to make out the features. Dark hair, pale skin, feathers. The bodies grow heavier but his limbs stay steady, he's too firmly rooted into the darkness that he grows from. He knows, very suddenly in the way that dreams work, that he is holding bears. Dozens of bears, skinned and bloody, just hanging sacks of meat, riddled with bullets and with guns shoved in their mouths, stretching the ropes and vines and feathers taut until their back paws almost, _almost_ touch the ground.

The woman comes closer, pale, pale, feathers, too far to make out the features, but watching.

Percy speaks, ponderously, the way that he imagines trees speak, his voice slow and tired from the weight he carries, "Have you come to take me now, too? I was the one who touched your Champion's armor first, after all."

The woman pauses, cocks her head, too far to make out the features, but when she speaks he hears her, clearly, as if she's whispering in his ear, "Percival, you dumb, creepy, _fool man_ ," and Percy startles so suddenly, gasping and flailing in his borrowed bed, that he wakes before he's ready to.

\------------------

After Pike's breakdown, she avoids Percy for a few days. Which is fine, honestly, because after his dream, Percy avoids everyone _else_ for a few days as well.

It's-- he's-- he's always done that, always been that way, always been aware and able to analyze his dreams as they're happening, always able to understand and appreciate the imagery and how it relates to his psyche, even if it's not always, and is in fact usually not, very positive. It's how he rationalized his first meeting with Orthax, how he'd accepted the clarity with which the dream gave him his ideas for his gun.

He's always known what's dream and what's reality, has always been able to grasp the acute details and strange minutiae that make up his unconscious thoughts, always remembers them to the letter when he wakes.

And he's quite sure, positive even, that the woman in his dreams is, in fact, Vex.

He's dreamed of her before, obviously. She's beautiful, and kind, and he-- he's rather fond of her. Normally dreams involving her are memories, conversations they've had in the past that his brain allows him to relive, or battles that have stuck out to him either because she made the killing blow or she was in enough peril that he worried for her safety. Sometimes, as he does with all of his friends, with the group that he's grown to accept as his second family, he has nightmares of her death. These have understandably become more frequent than he'd prefer lately. And then sometimes he dreams-- ah, ahem, well. From a statistical standpoint, surely not every dream he has of her can be a nightmare, can it?

Whether his dreams of late have conjured a spectral Vex'ahlia to torment him, a manifestation of his guilt, or it's truly the woman herself, he cannot say. The Raven Queen is obviously not a deity widely worshiped in Whitestone, a city that, recent events excepting, has always been rather fervently loyal to Pelor, and his knowledge of Her is rather base. From what he knows, Her followers don't have the power to manipulate dreams, and even if they did that would be assuming that Vex is, indeed, a follower.

They've never had an outright conversation about it, but Percy's gleaned over their years of friendship that Vex's view of theism matches closely to his; gods exist, which is lovely and she appreciates it, but beyond that she cares very little.

Percy isn't sure what would be a more outrageous possibility, though. If his brain is summoning rather accurate ghosts to berate him, or if Vex is somehow walking into his dreams.

He'd rather the others not know, not until he knows for sure, not until he gets this sorted out. If this is going to be another Orthax situation, then... He didn't exactly have a hard time saying yes to a demon made of smoke and shadow, did he? The gods only know what he'd agree to from a well-worded pact coming something wearing the face of the woman he-- well, it probably wouldn't be a very hard sell.

To that effect, Percy spends much of the next week (and gods, it's been over a _week_ and Vex still hasn't appeared) by himself, wandering about Vasselheim. Vax and Keyleth still spend the majority of their time at the Raven's Crest, with Trinket waiting outside despondently since he's not allowed in, and Pike stays at her own temple of Sarenrae more often than not, leaving him to peruse the city at his leisure, and in his solitude he reflects.

He doesn't dream of her every night, and she hasn't spoken since the first time. More often then not he sees only a shadowy figure, standing at a distance, watching whatever dreamscape his brain has created, silent, too far to make out the features. He's not even sure if it's her or the Raven Queen Herself; after all, maybe goddesses of death like to barge into nightmares and call unsuspecting humans creepy. He can't really see a minor detail like that being written into the scripts and dirges.

If it is her, though, if it is actually Vex, how can he use this? Can he find out where she is? Can he make sure that she's okay?

Can he ask her to come home?

\------------------

He dreams and, for once, it is not a nightmare.

He is warm and comfortable, in Whitestone, in Grayskull, it doesn't matter, he is _home_. His family surrounds him, smiling and laughing. The figures around him are shadowy, shifting, as if they can't decide which faces they want to wear, but it's not threatening; he has so many people who he loves. Through a window he can see the Sun Tree, vibrant and green with summer leaves. There are smiles and laughter, and it is so rare, so rare for him to be content, so rare that it isn't even something he puts effort into striving towards anymore, life is too cruel too often for contentedness.

There is a woman, in the distance, but closer than perhaps before, standing at the periphery, watching him, pale with dark hair, feathers.

"You could join me," he calls out, and the woman is just barely too far to make out the features, but he swears, he _swears_ , he sees her smile.

When he wakes, he-- he's--

Oh, gods, he thinks, and fights the childish urge, the animal instinct, to curl into a ball, shivering beneath his sheets. Those dreams are almost worse than the nightmares. At least with those he can wake up to something _better_.

What could he possibly have to look forward to that wouldn't seem bitter after something so sweet?

\------------------

Once, he follows Vax and Keyleth back to the temple of the Raven Queen. When they've taken their habitual post near the door, the better to see if Vex will perhaps come strolling in one day, Percy tracks down the high priest they'd spoken to on their first day back in Vasselheim.

"This woman we're waiting for," he says by way of introduction, and she pauses in her task of lighting candles, the wax of the one she's holding dripping blood red onto the dark marble floor, "you say that you dream of her? Does she speak to you?"

The priest stays still for a long moment, as if trying to decide how to word her answer, before going back to methodically lighting the hundreds of candles that line the foyer of the cathedral. "We who have been personally touched by the Raven Queen often have visions of Her chosen Champion," she says, carefully.

Champion. Oh, gods, what has he done to her?

"But does she speak? Does she communicate at all?"

"Rarely. Mostly she just watches, observes. She may be on a vision quest, but she will come here, eventually." The priest glances up at him, and Percy realizes that he doesn't even know her name. "She will not be the same, though. The Champions never are."

"Could she visit-- other people's dreams? Not just those who have been, ah, _touched_?"

Percy cannot-- he-- he cannot even contemplate it, Vex'ahlia returning different, returning to them _changed_. He's not sure if he could survive that, the knowledge that he'd ruined her, the way he'd ruined so many other things. He cannot think of a Vex'ahlia without her throaty laugh or her secretive smiles, her haggling, their trickshot games, the joking with Scanlan, the babytalk as she plays with Trinket, the incessant _winking_.

He cannot think of it, and so he won't.

"The Raven Queen's domain lies in the moment between life and death," the priest says, reverently, like a prayer. "In that moment that fate is decided, we are pawns to chance, the luck of the draw, the roll of a die, anything that may tip that delicately balanced scale to either side. Those men and women who have been at death's door enough times to become familiar with the threshold, those are the ones She recognizes, the ones Her Champion may recognize." She turns to look at him once more; in the span of the conversation she's lit a little less than an eighth of the candles. It must take her ages to go around the whole room.

"After all, child of Pelor," she says, and he tenses in surprise, "just because we do not always acknowledge the gods doesn't mean they don't acknowledge us."

When he returns to Vax and Keyleth, heart troubled, he sees them faring little better.

In the beginning, when they'd first arrived in Vasselheim, Vax had been a mess of nervous energy, pacing the halls of the Slayer's Take until admittance to the temple was open, occasionally demanding to talk to Osysa, who still has yet to take audience with them since the fall of the Conclave. Now he seems... numb. Empty. He stares at the doors to the temple with blank eyes, his hands limp in his lap.

The absence of his sister has effected him far more than the rest of Vox Machina had expected, and they'd expected what they'd thought at the time was the worst.

Keyleth, to counteract this, has gotten more and more wound up with each passing day, nervous energy making her fidget and fret, braiding her own hair anxiously and then undoing and redoing the braid of an unresisting Vax. She bites her lips constantly until they're chapped and split, like she's aching to speak but is too afraid to, and when Percy approaches she sits up straighter in attention, like a dog eager for its master's direction.

"Find out anything interesting?" she asks, and Percy takes a seat beside them, sighs and folds his hands together.

"The priest says that people who've nearly died enough times are the ones who typically get visited by the Raven Queen. I rather think we fit that bill, don't we?" Keyleth leans forward in interest, eyes wide, but Vax just stares forwards at the door. Casually, Percy continues, "So, anyone have any interesting dreams lately?"

"None more so than usual," Keyleth answers, running her hands through her hair and rucking up her messy braid, fingers digging into it to tighten it again. "Vax?" she asks, turning to him and licking her lips nervously. Percy can't imagine how excrutiating this must be for her; had their roles been reversed, he's not sure how well he could handle Vex through the loss of her brother, and they're not even really-- he may wish but-- (Ah, but he's learned his lesson well about wishing, hasn't he?)

It takes a long, long moment before Vax moves, lowering his gaze down to his hands. They're clenched so hard and so often now that flexing them visibly pains him. "I don't dream anymore," he tells them, quietly, barely over a breath, and Keyleth takes his hands into hers and holds them.

Percy, to whom comforting others is a struggle, can only avert his gaze.

\------------------

He dreams, and a woman watches. The Sun Tree is heavy, sagging with the bodies of the Council of Emon, the Council of Whitestone, the bodies of Vox Machina. They're all pale, throats torn open, frozen and burnt and shot and slashed, crushed, so many of them, all of them dead, and a woman watches. Percy counts them, then calls out, "A bit hypocritical, don't you think? To call me creepy and then just watch me while I sleep."

When he glances away from the Sun Tree, the woman is closer, closer than she's ever been before; Vex's skin is pale, but no more so than it had been in Rimefang's cave, perhaps, pale from cold and not death. Her hair is dark, with feathers braided into it, dozens of inky black feathers until it looks like she has a crest herself, but he can see, beneath them, perhaps a flash of blue. She cocks her head at him curiously.

"Technically," she says, and oh, oh gods, his heart can't take this, this soaring relief, this agonizing _hope_ , "I'm watching you dream, not sleep."

"Six of one," he accuses, and finally she smiles, that bright and lovely thing, oh _Vex_. The two of them regard each other and then Vex raises a hand, motions with it like she's sweeping something away, and when Percy blinks he is suddenly in Whitestone, the sun shining above them and the Sun Tree empty, with the only burdens it carries being green leaves.

"There we are," she says, placing her hands on her hips, and all he can do is stare at her, after nearly a month of worry and wonder and she's making bloody _small talk_ in his dream. "I much prefer this, I think. Don't you?"

"Where are you, Vex'ahlia?" It should occur to him that this could be a trick, a demon in disguise, but he's-- he wants it so badly, wants for it to truly be her with all the heart he can spare for it. He would speak to a demon willingly, if only it spoke back with her voice, if only it looked at him with her eyes. He has never claimed to be a particularly strong man.

"You know," she answers thoughtfully, lifting a hand to tap at her bottom lip curiously, "I'm not entirely sure. I'm where She told me to go, I suppose."

"Vex'ahlia," he says, and his voice breaks on it, cracks at the end, brittle. He has never known her to do blindly as she's told, oh god, what has he done to her? He's so careless with his own safety, but never, _never_ has he thought he'd be so with _hers_. Her eyes soften, her mouth curling into a smile, and she moves towards him, not really a step so much as a glide.

"Fool man," she murmurs, affection rich in her voice, and when she lifts her hands towards his face it's all he can do not to fall into them, the ache of her absence drawing him to her like poison from a wound. Her touch passes through him, insubstantial, and the disappointment is as sharp and cold as bitter as a sword, it would hurt less if Vax just stabbed him in the gut with one of his daggers, but he knows well that sting and it's an easy enough thing to force down for all that it hurts. Vex doesn't seem to notice it, just continues speaking, gentle and soothing, the way she talks to Trinket when he's injured and snarling at anyone who gets too close. "It's not so bad, really. She's not terrible, for all that She's complete shite at conveying Herself in a way that's not utterly macabre."

"Come home," he says. He is not a man who begs, not for anything, not since-- not since he was younger, when the Briarwoods first came, when he was tortured for information he didn't have, when he begged for death-- He is not a man who begs. He will, though. If she asks him to. If that's what she needs. "Please. I-- your brother needs you, Vex'ahlia."

"I keep trying to find him," she sighs, pulling away. She looks up at the Sun Tree, glides forwards and places a hand upon it. It doesn't pass through this time, her palm resting against the wood in a way that it couldn't against his skin, and it's-- ah, but he's so used to disappointment. "It's not very easy to do this, you know." She laughs, incredulous, as if surprised at her own strength. "I'm actually quite tired. I wasn't built for magic like this, I don't think. Simple things. Small wounds. Trick arrows. Not this."

"He said that he doesn't dream anymore," he tells her, and oh, oh it hurts, the way her face crumples in pain, that smile twisting down, and it hurts all the more to know that he's caused it _again_. First Cassandra and now her; he wonders if he will ever stop wounding the women he loves.

"Stubborn bastard," she says, closing her eyes. "Percival, if you're trying to convince me to come back before I'm ready to, you're doing a wretchedly good job of it. Go on, then, tell me something else that's my fault. Is Trinket eating enough?"

Percy has lied enough in his lifetime that he doesn't wish to lie to her, and so he says nothing.

Vex'ahlia draws herself up to her full height, which is still several inches shorter than himself, her brown eyes narrowing and her hands back on her hips.

"Percival Fredric-- oh, to the hells with it, I'm not saying the whole thing and you get the point anyway. I'm cross, is the point. You tell that overgrown furball that his mummy told him to eat, or when I get back I'm going to put bows on him _myself_."

He laughs, breathlessly, the relief of her, it's-- it's overwhelming. Oh, Vex'ahlia, he thinks. A thousand years he could live and he would never be worth her. "But you will come back?"

"Of course, darling," she says with a smile. "Not now. But eventually. When I'm ready."

He steps forward, towards her, but as is usually the case in his dreams, his foot lifts and then never lands and he falls away from her into the darkness, but ah, he wakes and it's not so terrible or surprising a thing. When it comes to her, he is rather used to falling.

\------------------

His relationship with Trinket has always been... ah, well, he's never really had a pet.

There was a cat, once, when he was still a fisherman, an ugly orange leggy thing that would lounge about the steps of the schooner like a king, its belly fat with worms and fish alike. Percy had decided to travel with them for as long as the bow was pointed South, learning knots and casting techniques and thinking about Whitestone and his loss as little as he could, spending his nights drunk more often than not, and he doesn't remember much of the cat beyond the fact that it would paw at any feet that passed by and loved to have its ears scratched.

It'd gotten caught in a net, at some point, one that had been cast into the water with the crew unaware until they'd all pulled it back in to find something sodden and orange caught in with the rest of the haul. The schooner had been a bit quieter than usual that night.

He'd liked it well enough, he supposed, enough to miss it after it was gone. He's never been the kind of person inclined to keep an animal, and certainly not a bloody bear like Vex'ahlia has, but were he ever to have a pet of his own it would more likely than not be a cat.

Reconciling that ugly, mangy cat with Trinket, who's a bear that acts like a dog and is treated like a toddler, has always been a bit difficult for Percy; he never quite knows if he's expected to scratch the beast under the chin or hold a conversation with him. And Vex'ahlia refers to herself as his mother, Vax calls him nephew, and that's-- that's strange, because--

(If he asked-- if they-- would he be-- ...step-son? step-bear? (Knowing her, Vex would doubtlessly demand he be written into the de Rolo inheritance, which is its own legal bag of cats that Percy has neither time nor inclination to devote thought to.))

It is all very confusing.

Trinket himself has always treated Percy to the same sort of warm indifference that he treats all of Vex's friends to; that being, he's defensive of them in battle and is willing to be cuddled against if someone happens to forget their bed roll, but beyond that has little enough care for them beyond a mild affection.

When Percy approaches the bear where he's laying forlornly outside of the temple of the Raven Queen, his massive chin resting on his equally massive paws, Trinket's big brown eyes swivel up to meet him and blink placidly.

"Hello, Trinket," he greets, feeling a bit silly, but honestly that lightness that he'd woken up with, that giddy feeling in his chest from his dream, hasn't gone away quite yet, and it makes it easier to make a fool of himself. Besides, he's been given a command from someone that he's quite happy to take commands from.

Trinket blinks again and shifts his weight, settling his bulk a bit more comfortably against the cobblestone. There's not much more reaction than that, but he's still watching Percy instead of outright ignoring him, which Percy figures is about as attentive an audience as he's going to get from a bear. He's slimmer than he was even a month ago, his fur not quite as rich and hardy as it used to be; he's not unhealthy by any means, still has plently of muscle, but he's clearly eating less than his body is accustomed to, and Percy doesn't know if he'd trust the poor thing not to keel over from exhaustion in a fight.

"Ah, let's take a walk and get something to eat, shall we?" A priest exits the temple as he's saying this and pauses briefly to give him a strange look before bustling away hurriedly, and Percy sighs to himself. "I am going to give your mother so much hell when she gets back. Come along, Trinket," and he whistles, lifting one hand the way he's seen the twins do to beckon the bear forward.

Trinket stares at him blankly for a long moment and Percy is suddenly very sure that he's going to be ignored, but after nearly a minute of holding his hand out like a fool Trinket finally lifts himself up and shakes his fur out, armor clanging as it shifts. Vex and her brother are the only ones who know how to take it off properly, and since she's not here and he's not willing to leave his vigil at the temple, the poor thing has just been faffing about in full bulette plate for the last few weeks. The bear stretches, first one back leg and then the other, before stepping towards Percy.

Forcing himself to stand still, as he sometimes must when interacting with Trinket, pure common sense and a lifetime of being taught not to wander into the woods surrounding Whitestone for fear of this exact type of predator not so easy a thing to overcome, he keeps his hand outstretched, and is sightly gratified when the bear pushes his snout into it, rubbing until Percy's palm is sitting directly between his soft, rounded ears. "Hello there," he murmurs, and Trinket chuffs, a heavy puff of breath that Percy can feel ruffle the lapels of his jacket.

This time when he turns away Trinket follows, though he notices the bear sending a few anxious looks towards the temple over his armored shoulder. "Vax will still be there when we get back," he says, guessing the bear's hesitation, and he's never been quite sure exactly how _much_ Trinket understands, how well he follows conversation, but he seems to get at least the gist of Percy's statement because now he keeps stride with him instead of falling behind like he had the first few steps.

It's odd, how many people turn to look at him in surprise, how civilians will cross over to the other side of the road to avoid walking near him now that he's got a bear following his heels. He doesn't notice it much when they're in a group, all of Vox Machina together, mostly because Trinket rarely leaves Vex's side, but walking alone with no one but the beast for company makes him self-conscious of himself in a way that he's not particularly used to. Ah, this must be how Vex feels all the time, or at least how she felt when she was younger; Percy cannot imagine her being embarrassed by it now.

It doesn't take too terribly long, but by the time they've located a butcher's shop they've left the Dusk Meadow district behind them, and Trinket looks excited for the first time that Percy's seen in a while, his head lifted high as he sniffs at the air, ears pricked and alert. Percy understands Vax's pain, he-- he gets it. It is terrible, to lose something so precious so suddenly. He spent more than enough time mourning the loss of his own siblings, after all. But still. He can't help but be mad on Trinket's behalf, can't help but wonder what Vex would think if she were aware the extent to which Vax was ignoring his own needs, his nephew's needs.

Oh, balls, now _he's_ calling the damn thing a nephew. If he ever has children it will be so _awkward_.

The butcher looks up from his chopping block and greets him cheerfully when he steps through the door, then drops his knife in surprise, eyes wide, when Trinket pushes his way through as well, his wide shoulders squeezing to fit through the doorframe. Percy can't imagine that it's very sanitary, having a lumbering bear around all of this raw meat, but hell, the butcher seems too intimidated to ask them to leave, which is how he imagines Vex gets away with a lot of the things she gets away with.

"Go on," he says to Trinket, gesturing at the arrays of meats on display, "pick something out-- No, _don't stick your nose in it_ , ah, yes, thank you."

To the surprise of literally no one, Tricket seems most enamored with the salmon, eyes wide and jowls dripping with saliva as he sniffs it, and Percy buys four of them, haggling halfheartedly but eventually paying full price and a bit more besides when Trinket's instinct overrules his manners and he starts pulling at a pheasant hanging from the ceiling with his teeth while Percy's back is turned.

"This is why your mother hordes gold," he informs Trinket unhappily once they've left the shop and found a bench nearby to park themselves at, the bear chowing down messily and noisily while Percy watches, "because you'd eat enough to empty a purse if she let you."

Trinket devours the pheasant and the first two salmon ravenously, tearing into the meat with sickening crunching noises and little pause; after he's swallowed down the third fish, bones and all, Percy silently decides that he'll buy however much he needs to despite his earlier grumbling. It's the least he can do, after all.

The fourth fish, however, Trinket picks over more slowly, the rest of the meal seeming to catch up with him, and though he does eat the whole thing it takes the better part of an hour and afterwards he flops over lazily, stretching out on his side with a contented rumble. Percy can't imagine it's a very comfortable position to maintain with all of that armor and determines that once they return to the Take that evening he'll sit down and figure out how to properly take it off.

Stretching his own legs out, Percy tilts his head back and closes his eyes against the sun. That light, joyful feeling is still there, and he's loathe to analyze his dream for fear of dissipating it. It's just-- that must have been Vex. It _must_ have been. He is well familiar with her face, her mannerisms, the shape of her mouth as it curls into a smile, perhaps more familiar than propriety would normally ask him to be.

It was her that came to him, though, that night that she'd came to his bed and slept with him. It-- that was almost better than the dreams he has, the ones he doesn't like to think about, the ones he keeps buried deep inside, the ones he's _exceptionally_ glad Vex hasn't walked into on her nightly excursions through his subconscious.

It was-- oh, but it was lovely, to be sought for comfort, to be able to provide it, to feel like perhaps he was finally enough for something good all on his own merit. He's not a man to whom that comes naturally, comforting, but for her he would be willing to learn.

A weight settles onto his lap, sudden and unexpected, and Percy startles for a moment, eyes jerking open until he sees that it's only Trinket, chin resting against his knee and staring at him with those dark, wet eyes. It smears gore across his pants and jacket from the bear's meal, which is, _ugh_ , but if he is ever going to act on his desires with Vex'ahlia, which honestly he fully intends to once the dust of this debacle has settled, this is just something that he'll have to get used to.

Percy lifts a hand and then rests it on Trinket's head again, rubbing at his ears, and the bear makes a soft, sad, longing noise, one that he hears sometimes when Vex has told him to stay put or she's wandered somewhere that he can't follow. It never fails to make her face screw up guiltily, make her ruffle the folds of his neck and coo, "Ooh, _buddy_!" and now that it's directed at him, Percy can understand.

"I know, darling," he says, the way Vex does, testing the affectionate name on his tongue, seeing how the shape of it fits in his mouth. Strange, but not terrible. He could grow into it. In reply, or perhaps just recognizing the word that his master calls him with such love in her voice, Trinket closes his eyes and leans into Percy's touch, rumbling softly. "I know. I miss her too."

Eventually, she'd said. Not now, but eventually.

Percy doesn't have quite the patience of a Ranger, but for her he can wait.

\------------------

He dreams, and there is no woman watching.

It's a mild dream, he supposes, one of a memory, some time shortly after he'd joined Vox Machina, before they'd actually _become_ Vox Machina, back when he still kept stubbornly to himself. He remembers this battle, very vaguely; Grog and Pike had both fallen unconscious, an unfortunate spell having caught the two of them in its blast by surprise, and Keyleth had shifted into a bear herself, she and Trinket scrambling to keep enemy attention on them so that Vax could sneak around behind their foe.

At the time it had seemed rather dire, but in the end the fight itself had been resolved quickly, the only true danger having been in the mage's surprise attack, and the lot of them had walked away from it with only minor scrapes and bruises that had been healed promptly by Pike as soon as she'd regained consciousness.

Now, though, in his dream, the battle goes poorly. He seems to have been dropped right in the middle of it, forced to watch like a bystander as Grog falls and then is run through the middle with a wicked glaive, blood bursting from his nostils and pouring over his lips. Pike is trampled in the tumult of battle, too small for her party to properly see. Keyleth roars and slashes with her mighty paws, but an arrow catches her in the eye and she drops, losing her beast shape and crumpling to the ground, sunset-red hair splayed about her head. Vax screams in rage, giving away his position, and their enemy turns swiftly, sword arching through the air, rending his head from his shoulder. Vex lets out an inhuman wail and charges toward, arrows forgotten, swinging her bow down like a club, but she too is cut down before she can even get close enough to make a hit. Tiberius looses a fireball, snarling in Draconic, but he's too close and he gets caught in the radius, sending himself, Trinket, Scanlan, and the enemy mage alike flying from the force of the explosion, and when they land none of them move.

And Percy watches himself, standing alone on the battlefield, gun in hand, useless, and surrounded by his dead friends.

Except, at this time, in this memory, they weren't his friends, were they? Not yet. He hadn't spent enough time with them to call him that, they were just the motley group that had posted his bail in exchange for his help with a task. He didn't yet know Grog's too-big heart, or Pike's gentle smile. He didn't yet know Keyleth's endearing naivety, or Tiberius's wealth of knowledge and his love of sharing it. He didn't yet know Scanlan's voice pitched low as he sang to pass the time while they marched, or Trinket's affable willingness to be used as a bed. He didn't yet know Vax's quick and clever tongue, always ready with a quip, or Vex's loyalty, Vex's smile when poking fun at him, Vex's laughter when he misses a shot she'd bet against him making, Vex's back tucked against his in battle as he reloads, Vex's unwillingness to let him give himself away to the darkness inside of him, Vex's companionable silences when he just needs company but not conversation, Vex's scent surrounding him when she crawls into his bed and curls up against his back and trusts him to be her anchor, _Vex_ \--

Percy watches himself, standing alone on the battlefield, gun in hand, useless. Percy watches himself dust himself off and then walk away.

A woman watches, in the distance, not as close she has been previously but closer than he expects after witnessing the scene before them. He and she watch as Percy disappears into the forest, leaving the slain members of his party behind. She looks tired, he notes, close enough to see her features. Not exhausted, but tired. And sad.

She looks up, catches his eye, and then raises her hand with a nod. She motions, and the battlefield melts away and Percy is back at the Sun Tree, leaves as green as anything, the midmorning sun warm against his back. She turns and walks away, and when Percy says, "Wait--" and takes a step forward his foot lifts and then never lands and he's falling away from her in the darkness.

\------------------

"I am so worried about him, Percy," Keyleth tells him, the two of them standing outside of the Raven Queen's temple, tucked into a dark alcove of the building where she'd pulled him aside. "He doesn't eat, he barely sleeps. He hears me when I speak and he responds back, but I don't think he actually _listens_."

She bites her lip and buries her face into her hands, shoulders shaking, and Percy wraps his arms around her and pulls her close, sighing into her hair. She's such a thin thing in his arms, so small and fragile, and he feels a protectiveness inside his heart for her that he's only felt before with Cassandra, when she was young and sometimes pushed around by their other siblings. "I don't know what to _do_ , Percy," she finishes, her throat catching on the words, voice wet with tears she's trying desperately not to shed.

"When Vex comes back it'll get better, you'll see," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Affection is so much easier with her than with anyone else, because she accepts it easily and without expectation and so he doesn't have to watch himself quite so carefully. "He is mourning, but when she comes back that mourning will end."

"What if she doesn't," Keyleth whispers, clinging to him tightly, hands fisted into the back of his jacket. She's shaking against him, like a twig in a windstorm. "What if she doesn't come back and he doesn't get better and I've lost them _both?_ "

He considers his words carefully; he's been hesitant to tell the others about his dreams, especially since Vex doesn't seem to be able to visit the others in their sleep, which is suspect enough in and of itself. He believes it is truly her, he feels it in his heart, but if he's wrong--

He's not sure that Vax could survive that.

"We need to have faith that she will," he says finally, and Keyleth scoffs. Percy smiles self-deprecatingly and jostles her gently with one hand. "I know, I know, I'm a man with little enough of that. But I have faith in her, if nothing else."

"What am I supposed to do, Percy?" she asks, and it's an honest question, not a confrontation. She presses her face against him and he sets his chin on the top of her head. "I am so worried."

"I can only tell you what I would want," he says softly, "and that is understanding. You cannot force him to be happy, and making him pretend to be will only cause resentment. He is a difficult man, Vax," she scoffs again, louder this time, and when Percy chuckles she nuzzles into the vibration of his chest, "and he keeps his feelings smothered down deep inside, but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel them just as deeply as you do." He pulls her back, wipes a tear from her cheek, and smiles sadly. "All you can do is be there for him, and hope that that will be enough."

"You're not as upset as I thought you'd be," she tells him suddenly, like an accusation, and he rolls his eyes.

"Like I said, I have faith in her. I think that she's stronger than any of us give her credit for, herself and her brother included. I firmly believe that she'll return, if for no other reason, then simply out of sheer stubbornness and spite."

"You're in love with her," Keyleth says, eyes wide, like it's a realization. Percy thinks on it for a moment before shrugging.

"Yes," he agrees, "I suppose I am."

\------------------

He dreams, and sometimes she is there, and sometimes she's not. Sometimes she approaches and speaks, briefly, checking in on her brother and her bear, and sometimes she stands at a distance and simply watches whatever visions his brain has produced. Sometimes she smiles and laughs and sometimes she looks so incredibly _tired_. Sometimes she changes his dreams for him when she doesn't like the direction they go in, and sometimes the darkness inside of him is too strong and it swallows him up and away from her.

Eventually, she'd said. When I'm ready, she'd said.

Percy waited nearly half a decade to get his revenge for his family. He can wait a little while longer for her.

\------------------

When their second month in Vasselheim draws to a close, Vax disappears.

Keyleth finds the door to his room in the Take shut and locked and assumes he's left for the temple already, but seeks Percy out an hour later in a frantic tizzy.

"He's not there," she says anxiously, wringing her hands together. She has even more nervous energy than he does with even fewer outlets, pacing kinetically through the Take's front hallway, Murtin watching her with a look of unimpressed boredom. Percy has given up on calming her down, and now all he can do is wait her out, wait for her to fret herself into exhaustion. "He's not at the temple and he's not here, and I don't know where he is, Percy!" She whips around to face him, hands fisted into her red hair. "What if he's off doing something stupid again, Percy! He does stupid things _so much_ , Percy!"

"I'd be lying if I disagreed," he says with a shrug, slouching in his chair in a way that would have made his mother grind her teeth in exasperation as he cleans his gun, legs kicked out in front of him and feet resting on Trinket's back. The bear seems utterly unfazed by the treatment, so Percy figures he can't dislike it too much, though he knows if Vex were here she'd tan his hide. The fact that Trinket doesn't seem upset over his missing uncle is why Percy is being so lackadaisical about the situation; if Vax were in trouble, or if he'd gone too terribly far, then Trinket would have been stressing just as badly as Keyleth.

Instead the bear is licking his front paws noisily, the movements occasionally upsetting Percy's boots from their perch between his shoulders.

"I should scry him," she says, passing in front of him. When her back is turned, Murtin catches Percy's eye and mimes hanging himself, and he stifles a snort. "No, I can't scry without help." She jerks towards Percy and stands in front of him, slightly to the side to avoid Trinket. "Percy, help me scry him!"

Percy, whose very, very limited magic revolves around shadows and trickery, a constant reminder of his poor decisions, as if Vex's death and subsequent disappearance weren't enough, meets her eyes over his glasses, pulled down low on the bridge of his nose to better see the gun up close with, and raises an eyebrow.

"No, that's right, you suck, I forgot." And she goes back to pacing.

"I'll try not to take offense at that," he says drolly, and goes back to running his fingers along the barrel of the pistol. The last time he'd shot it, it'd misfired, and he's fearful of the metal now. Perhaps his attempt at making it lighter has made the alloy too weak...

Fingers snap in front of his face, startling him, which is a very foolish thing to do to someone who's holding a gun, and he looks back up at Keyleth, whose hands are now on her hips as she glares at him.

"Why are you not worried about this!" she shouts, not even an actual question, and Percy stares at her before pointedly lifting one of his feet off of Trinket's back and then nudging him with it.

Trinket lifts his head with a warning rumble, and Percy just nudges harder. The last few weeks he's spent taking the bear out for walkies and cleaning up after his, ah, expulsions in place of Vax have made him less far less intimidating than he used to be. It's hard to take Trinket seriously after having to fuss at him for chewing on one of his holsters. The beast blinks at him, eyes narrowed, before predictably letting out a great huff and dropping his head back down on his paws as if deciding that Percy's not worth it.

"If Vax were in trouble," he says, pushing his glasses up further on his nose to look at her properly, "do you think Trinket would be here letting me use him as a foot stool?"

Keyleth stares at him incredulously, then throws her hands up into the air with a groan. "I'm going back to the temple," she says. "Maybe I missed him on the way there. Maybe I just passed him!"

"Maybe," Percy agrees absentmindedly, attention already back on his gun. He's learned that when Keyleth is in her moods, it's best to just nod along to whatever she's saying and hum appropriately. He gets in a lot less trouble, that way.

Maybe a half a minute after she leaves, Murtin clears his throat from behind the front counter, and Percy glances up at him curiously. "You know," he says, his accent rich and thick. Percy wonders where it is, exactly, that he's from. "The dour, grumpy one told me where he was going, when he left this morning."

Percy lets himself have a moment to take that in, and then says slowly, "And you didn't feel the need to offer this information earlier, why...?"

The Halfling shrugs, his surprisingly broad shoulders rising and falling easily. "She didn't ask."

The Bellow's Respite is just as raucous and degenerate as it's been every other time Percy has been there, though as a lone human of relatively slight build and not much musculature he garners a lot more attention than he did while here before with a group. Miners and smiths gawk at him as he passes, but Percy was raised in nobility; he is familiar with how to take the tension in a room and _own_ it.

Vax is a brooding, dark figure sitting in a secluded corner, glaring into his drink. The other patrons of the bar seem to be avoiding him, and therefore avoid Percy as well when he approaches. Vax glances up at him, dark eyes narrowed, before looking back into his ale with little reaction when Percy takes a seat at his side.

Percy catches the eye of the barkeep and gestures towards them, and within a minute, a minute spent in silence, they both have new, full flagons in front of them. Percy lifts the drink to his lips and sniffs, then winces at the thick, hoppy scent of grain and barley. It's the kind of ale that he wasn't allowed to drink growing up, at least not in front of his parents.

(He'd snuck off to a tavern once, in his gangly teenage years before he'd truly grown into his limbs, spurred by Julius, who was a terrible influence and loved to play the role of rebellious older brother. It'd been one of the first times he'd left the castle without a proper chaperone, and in the dark of night without his father's critical eye on him the city of Whitestone had changed radically into a new and grand adventure. Julius had ordered them a drink similar to this, thick as tar and with the kind of taste and texture that Percy imagined was akin to licking the inside of a boot, and told him to drink it, saying, "It'll put some hair on your chest!"

And Percy had, of course, too nervous to disappoint his older brother and in trying to seem older than he was he'd taken too big of a gulp and ended up nearly vomiting. "You're like a stork choking on a fish!" Julius had said, laughing so hard he'd cried. "Flapping and squawking, all beak and legs!"

How young he'd been, for that to have been an adventure. Gods. Gods, how young.)

It's the first time he's thought of Julius in a while, really and honestly thought about him, not just the loss of him. He wasn't so terrible an older brother, really. A bit of a prick, but then again he'd probably been a bit of a prick to the de Rolos born after him, too. With that thought in mind, when he looks back up at Vax, he takes a moment to really _look_ at him.

He's pale. Pale, and tired looking.

Percy has had little enough experience with other races, outside of his traveling with Vox Machina; Whitestone is made up almost entirely of humans, to the point where Vex had once made a comment about it seeming almost xenophobic, and though he was taught other languages in his schooling his extending encounters with true Elves could likely be counted on the fingers of one hand. Those that he has met have all appeared quite similar, in slightly different ways, and he knows that paleness is typical of the race, thus lending to the title _fair folk_ , at least in the case of most Elves from Syngorn.

Vax, though, looks more wane than Percy has ever seen him, a natural inclination towards light skin exacerbated by the past two months that he's been sitting like a statue in a temple that, by its very nature, seems to disdain the sun. The shadows under his eyes stand out like bruises, and Percy, who's always had a similar problem, his sleeplessness and nightmares and stress manifesting in deep bags that are often only just hidden by the frames of his glasses, is nearly _impressed_ by how exhausted he looks.

Like Trinket, he's lost weight, his clothes fitting him loosely and awkwardly, and when he finally looks up and faces Percy's inspection his lips are pulled down into a frown.

"You look horrible," Percy tells him, because they may not be able to be much more than civil with each other now, but.. but they were friends once, he likes to think, and he does very much hate lying to his friends.

"There is a thing, Percival," Vax says, his voice dry with disuse, and he clears his throat, "called tact."

"I'm just being honest," he says with a shrug, taking a sip of his drink and then fighting a violent shudder at the taste. Ah, yes, he thinks. Rather much like licking a boot. He's certainly had worse though, especially in the days immediately following his exile from Whitestone. Being on a fishing boat destroyed a lot of his ability to taste things, along with a couple other senses; he honestly thinks that it's only in the last year or so that he's regained his ability to smell.

"You can be honest and tactful," Vax tells him, drinking as well and struggling to hold in his own shiver.

"This beer is shite," Percy says after a moment, tongue licking against the roof of his mouth, "and that is me being honest and tactful, as there are far worse words I could use to describe it."

"Here, here," Vax agrees, and they toast to shite beer, clinking their glasses together. "Tastes like the underside of an unwashed sack."

Percy thinks, briefly, about what kind of unwashed sacks Vax has been tasting the underside of, and then mentally backpedals so hard that he loses the ability to think for a moment.

Still, the two of them continue to drink, and eventually his taste buds accept the abuse and go numb, and so nearly five minutes pass in silence before he speaks again. "Keyleth is worried about you."

Vax stares into his drink and then sighs heavily, runs a hand through his hair. It's slicker than it normally is, oilier than he typically lets it get, his braid loose and frayed at the end from lack of care. "She always worries," he says quietly, and Percy hums.

"You have to admit, you give her good reason to."

Grunting, though whether it's in agreement or not Percy can't tell, Vax pushes aside what's left of his drink and drops his face into his hands, elbows on the table. It's-- he-- Percy wishes that he could help, that he could offer comfort in whatever way he can, but a shared drink and a companionable silence do not a bridge make, and the distance between the two of them is so wide now that he's become convinced that Vex might be the only one capable of fixing it.

"I'm lost, Percival," Vax says into his hands finally, voice muffled from between his fingers. "I've been lost since my sister vanished. I just..." He sighs and pulls back, blinking his eyes rapidly, his throat working, and ah, _hells_ , Percy's been dealing with everyone else crying lately, he figures Vax is due for a turn. "I don't know how to... to _be_ , without her."

"She'll come back," Percy tells him, reaching out despite his hesitance and placing a hand on Vax's shoulder. The other man tenses, muscles coiled like a snake preparing to strike, and when he relaxes it is slowly and gradually instead of all in a rush. "I earnestly believe that she will come back to us."

"Two months," Vax croaks, wiping at his eyes. "This is the longest I have _ever_ been away from her, and it is _killing_ me. How can she survive? How can it not be destroying her too, how can she willingly stay away?"

Percy thinks about Vex, about her tired eyes, the way she stands at a distance in his dreams, watching his nightmares with no energy to interfere. He wonders, certainly not for the first time and likely not for the last, where she is and how she got there, what exactly it is that she has to be ready for before she can come back. "When she died," he says slowly, and Vax tenses all over again, "she came back different. You know it and I know it, we all knew it and we just didn't want to acknowledge it. She came back different, and I think, somehow, she came back _wrong_ , and I think her leaving, her staying away, is her attempting to fix that."

"I won't forgive you for this," Vax tells him, softly, dangerously, though Percy doesn't fear him, not truly; if Vax wanted to slide a knife between his ribs he's had ample opportunity to do so. "Not for killing her, and not for what it's caused."

"I don't expect you to," Percy replies, taking a sip of his drink. It goes down hard, hits his stomach like a punch. "I won't, either."

"So long as you're aware," Vax says, and Percy lifts his drink in another toast. Another few minutes pass in silence before he continues, voice quietly and still thick with tears he refuses to shed, "Do you honestly think that she'll come back?"

"Yes," Percy says instantly. "She's too stubborn not to."

Vax toasts this time with a wry, wet chuckle, then says, "Keyleth is going to be so upset that we got day drunk without her."

"Day drunk?" Percy scoffs, counts to three and then throws back what's left of his ale, coughing violently as Vax raises an eyebrow, impressed despite himself. He gestures at the bartender for another, tears forming at the corners of his eyes as he works against the burning in his throat. "I'm not even day tipsy yet. If she's going to be mad, we may as well make it worth it."

\------------------

He dreams, and he's back in his room at Grayskull Keep, in his bed.

Dreams are such strange and fickle things, he thinks to himself, that he could be sleeping and his brain could _still_ make him feel exhausted. His limbs feel heavy, like there are weights attatched to them, and trying to form a concrete thought is like wading through a sea of cotton, but he just gets so _tired_ , sometimes, and sometimes that manifests itself into his dreams as well.

It's fine, he could use a gentle dream, a break from the nightmares; there are worse dreams he could have than one of sleep.

In the way that dreams work, he knows very suddenly that there is someone in his room, but it's a soft presence, an easy one, and his heartbeat is still slow and methodical when the sheets to the bed lift, his attention to detail even in sleep causing the ethereal fabric to shift noisily. A weight settles in against him, and when he turns, Vex blinks at him and then smiles.

"Hello," she says.

"Hello," he replies.

They look at each other for another few moments before she laughs, softly, and pulls herself in a little bit closer. His arms wrap around her on instinct and when she tucks her face into his shoulder he rests his chin on her head. "Fancy meeting you here," she murmurs, and Percy scoffs out a laugh.

"It's my dream, and my bed. I should be the one saying that."

"And yet you don't seem surprised at all," she accuses, the grin in her voice obvious even though he can't see her face.

Feeling cheeky, overwhelmed by the touch of her, the sound of her voice, his defenses lowered in the gentleness of sleep, he tells her candidly, "You and beds show up in my dreams together far more than is proper, honestly."

It startles a snort out of her, and he can feel her shoulders shake in surprised mirth. Face still hidden in his chest, she lets out a gasp and says in a mock-scandalized voice, "Percival! How forward." A pause, and then, "And only beds? I'd assumed you more creative than that."

He shrugs and hides his smile into her hair. Gods, he's missed her. Gods, he wants her back. "Beds, work benches, tables, walls..."

"I'm utterly offended," she giggles, and pulls back just enough to press a kiss to his chin.

When they settle again, a few minutes pass in silence, or what amounts to minutes in dreams, but it is good, and they are good. This is-- this is why he cares for her so much, honestly. Because she may not entirely understand him but she tries so hard, and all she asks in return is the same from him. Friends, lovers, he likes to think it wouldn't matter which, though obviously he would prefer one over the other, so long as she was in his life in some sort of capacity.

He did not lie, that night, in his actual bed, when she'd woken him up and he'd said he'd loved her.

"You seem tired," he says softly. "Where do you wander, Vex'ahlia, that exhausts you so?"

"Here and there," she murmurs in reply. "Wherever She wills me. My heart aches, though, Percival, and I believe that I'm quite ready to rest it."

He hums softly and runs a hand soothingly up and down her back. "Your family will be here, and we'll carry it for you."

"I do love you, you know," she whispers, voice soft and fading fast. He can tell that the dream is ending, that she's expended what energy she has in staying this long. Ah, but at least it was a good dream, and not one where she had to save him from himself again. "I can't remember if I actually told you or not. How silly of me."

"You didn't," he reminds her, grinning despite himself. "If I recall, you instead insinuated that I wasn't a gentleman, which is preposterous."

"What a fool I am," she agrees, pulling away. She sits up and leans over him, dark hair falling into his face, and he slides his hand through it, calloused fingertips catching on the vanes of a feather. She dips down slowly, slowly enough that he anticipates it, that his eyes close in reaction, and kisses him, lips working against his gently, and his hand tightens in her hair, and before either of them can deepen it he wakes, and when he wakes--

\--he's holding a feather, turquoise and bright as the sky, in his hand.

\------------------

He can't describe the pull inside of him that drags him to the Marrowglade Loch. He just knows, very suddenly, that it is where he needs to be.

Keyleth and Vax are already at the temple when he wakes, and the urgency in his chest compels him to leave without them, but that's fine, he has a feeling that for once fate is smiling on him this day. Trinket lifts his head from his place on the floor when Percy exits his room, back in his traveling coat and light leathers and with a blue feather in his hand, and when he follows Percy makes no motion to shoo him back.

It's a silent trek, and a long one, and more than once they have to hide to avoid some manner of beast that roams the woods outside of Vasselheim, but something tugs him forward, something in his chest, and when he walks his feet don't waver.

It's nearly dusk when they reach the Loch, and what a difference the turn of the season has made from the last time he was here. The forest is vibrant and green and the surface of the lake is still, glassy but for the occasional ripple as a fish swims beneath the water. It's serene, almost; had Percy not known what horrors had lurked in the ruins beneath, he'd have been tempted to fashion a pole and wile away the hours fishing.

"But what are we here for?" he wonders aloud to Trinket, who grunts in reply, sniffing about the ground curiously. The setting sun casts the lake and the clearing surrounding it into a rich pink hue, and the shadows have grown longer even in the few minutes that he's stood here, but Percy is not afraid and he's not quite sure why.

Suddenly, Trinket's head lifts, swivels abruptly to stare across the expanse of the water, ears pricked upright and alert and when Percy turns to follow his gaze his heart stops, and then, as dark and heavy a thing as it may be, lifts and soars.

On the other side of the Loch, in the distance, a woman watches.

**Author's Note:**

> And you  
> You knew the hand of the Devil  
> And you  
> Kept us awake with wolf's teeth  
> Sharing different heartbeats in one night  
> \--Jose Gonzalez, "[Heartbeats](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A20rx8VQnTE)"


End file.
